Quality Weenie

Chrysler To Play Up German Roots

Chrysler will be running a new ad campaign for the summer sell-off of vehicles before the new model year vehicles hit in October.

The new campaign will heavily tote their relationship with Damiler and Germany. They said they did a survey and found that a lot of people in America don't know that Chrysler has ties to Damiler (they have been hiding under a rock I guess).

Question is, do they really want to play up their German roots and play down their American ties? They are actually telling people that they are not an American company anymore. Not wise if you ask me.

Chrysler Group this weekend will break a new ad campaign that touts the company's summer sell-down, but it will also contain a message delivered in part by DaimlerChrysler chief executive officer Dieter Zetsche that Chrysler has a lot of German blood running through its veins and fuel lines.

The CEO on Wednesday hedged about the ads, which will be shown at a press conference Friday. But he said that the ads will talk up Chrysler's connection to Mercedes-Benz and its German ownership. Zetsche's German accent should help drive the point home. The ads, which he says, will be "product-focused" will be tagged with the summer sale offer, which dealers have said will be "employee pricing."

Why push the "German" button? Zetsche says that one reason Chrysler is having to use the highest consumer incentives in the marketplace and is carrying the highest inventories of unsold vehicles is that consumers are bundling Chrysler with GM and Ford, which have been the subjects of ongoing negative news coverage. "There is a great amount of negative news about GM and Ford that has had negative fallout on us," said Zetsche. "Lots of people out there don't differentiate among Detroit brands," he said.

Chrysler communications chief Jason Vines says research the company did recently shows a "remarkable" lack of awareness about Chrysler being part of DaimlerChrysler or being related to Mercedes-Benz. "We want people to understand that DaimlerChrysler has superior resources to deliver product technology," said Zetsche, citing the rear-drive 300 sedan and Grand Cherokee diesel as two examples of how Mercedes benefits Chrysler. "We have technology and know-how that is not available to other volume brands," said the CEO.

Hattip: The Car Connection

Another article about it.

Posted by Quality Weenie at June 29, 2006 07:07 AM | TrackBack